Walking tours | Guilford Preservation Alliance

September 21, 2016 By Tracy Tomaselli

A Digital Tour of Architecture Around the Green / Guilford Preservation Alliance Awards for Efforts of Preservation

A Digital Tour of Architecturally Significant Buildings around the Green

Followed by

The Guilford Preservation Alliance Awards for Significant Efforts of Preservation

Join Dennis Culliton and Virginia Gresham as they demonstrate the newly available digital tours of Guilford Center. These tours include historical photographs and detailed audio recordings describing the history and architectural features of important local buildings. The tours can be accessed at the location sites through QR codes.

Following the digital tour GPA President Shirley Girioni will lead the Guilford Preservation Alliance’s Annual Meeting which will include the presentation of 8 awards for significant efforts of preservation by individuals and groups in the town of Guilford

Monday, September 26 at 7 pm

Guilford Free Library

Sponsored by the Guilford Preservation Alliance and the Friends of the Guilford Free Library. To register,
please call (203) 453-8282, stop by the reference desk or click here

Guilford Free Library ~ 203-453-8282 ~ guilfordfreelibrary.org ~ 67 Park Street

February 6, 2013 By Web Editor

Illustrated Walking Guide

The first edition of Sarah Brown McCulloch’s Guilford: A Walking Guide, The Green & Neighboring Streets was published in 1989 with principal funding provided by the Guilford Preservation Alliance. In 2012 we presented for the first time an online version of the text with updates from the 2012 revision. Now, in February 2013, we have begun adding photos to this text. For links to this new illustrated version of Sarah Brown McCulloch’s Guilford: A Walking Guide click here. We also have a new illustrated version of our survey of Significant Structures Fifty Years Old or More.

[Read more…]

September 1, 2012 By Web Editor

Hope Springs Gala

What a great party we had for the “Hope Springs” premier! Thanks to our hosts at the Guilford Food Center and Breakwater Books and to all of the merchants who sponsored the very successful fundraiser. The event on August 8th brought together excited moviegoers, local and state politicians, and even a few local businessmen in tuxes. Guilford Preservation Alliance board member Ellie Green’s husband Barry took great photos capturing the spirit and excitement of the evening. [Read more…]

May 26, 2012 By Web Editor

Walking Tours to Begin

The latest project I have been working on is developing the Historic Walking Tours program here in Guilford. We have assembled a group of enthusiastic high school student researchers and guides who will lead visitors on two newly-developed tours, both encompassing the Guilford Historic Town Center (which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places). One tour will focus on the history of Guilford and include an introduction to three of Guilford’s house museums. The second tour will focus on architecture and include Guilford’s historic districts and scenic Broad and Fair Streets.

Abigail Leete house

Highlights of our walking tours will include our well-known eight-acre green, the home site of the most popular poet of the 19th century, six homes on the National Register of Historic Places, two historic districts, stories of Indian Wars and regicides, stories of America’s most popular novelist of the 19th century and Guilford’s most famous summer guest, details of New England slavery, histories of separatists from the Church of England, revolts within the Congregational Church, and the expulsion of Abolitionists. All in a community with the oldest stone house in New England, the third most pre-Revolutionary War homes in the Northeast, and almost 375 years of history.

These same student guides are developing a Historic Architecture Walking Tour of our most beautiful residential streets filled with 18th and 19th century homes. These homes built for sea captains, preachers, merchants, traders, and congressmen are representative of Colonial, Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, Second Empire, and the rare Octagonal architectural styles. Students are also discovering the stories of the women and men who lived in these homes.

Dennis Culliton.

Editor’s Note: Instead of the student-guided tours described above, a free walking tour on Saturdays at 11 am in the summer season begins at the Information Kiosk at 32 Church Street. Check the information on the visitguilfordct.com website at http://www.visitguilfordct.com/todo-category/tours/ The same site offers information about self-guided tours of the Alder Brook Cemetery and of the Fair Street Historic District.

February 23, 2012 By Web Editor

Guilford: A Walking Guide

The first edition of Sarah Brown McCulloch’s Guilford: A Walking Guide, The Green & Neighboring Streets was published in 1989 with principal funding provided by the Guilford Preservation Alliance. We are presenting for the first time an online version of the text (from the 2006 seventh printing, revised, with a few editorial notes in brackets from 2012). In the future we plan to present an illustrated version. A new revision of McCulloch’s book is expected to appear in the summer of 2012.

You can click here to begin reading Guilford: A Walking Guide.

October 21, 2011 By Web Editor

Heritage Tourism Initiative

On Tuesday, October 18, 2011, the Guilford Preservation Alliance sponsored a workshop on Heritage Tourism. The workshop was led by Carolyn Brackett, the Senior Program Associate for the Heritage Tourism Program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Susan Misur covered the event and her article appeared in the Friday, October 21, 2011 issue of the New Haven Register.

Witness to History Slavery in Guilford

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